Sunday, 8 August 2010

Undercover with the young conservatives...

Yup, I haven't even managed to cross-post this week, because I became homeless *again* and had to scrabble for a place to live whilst finishing deadlines, and a dog ate my homework. But you should all read this, because I suffered for this one, godsdamnit. I had to pretend I was a racist for an evening. It was terrifying. Enjoy, with trepidation.

*****

The teenager in the posh frock delivers her advice with the authority of weary experience. "Since this is your first Conservative Future event, I thought I ought to say -watch out for the men here," she whispers, as her friends disappear to the bar. "Most of them can't be trusted." We're at the Young Britons' Foundation summer party, incorporating the leadership hustings of Conservative Future, where I've come to observe the young right in full victory rut.

Descending three flights of stairs to the private function room at the Mahiki club in central London is a little like stepping into a sewer where the cultural overspill of the 1980s has been draining for twenty years. The room is stuffed with pasty young men in suits and ties drinking nasty orange cocktails and gossiping about Ken Clarke; the smattering of women present are wearing expensive polyester and listening prettily to what the boys have to say.

It's like a scene from one of those time-travelling detective shows, down to the droning muzak, the atmosphere of grim introspection, and the suspicion that everyone here is acting a role. The young people lounged around the bar seem to be rehearsing a set of social stereotypes that feel too clichéd to be real, mouthing empty lines of propaganda - "Thatcher did what needed to be done!" -with only a rudimentary understanding of their implications.

The Young Britons' Foundation is a finishing school for the centre-right which claims to be non-partisan and offers classes in dealing with the media, but the organisers have somehow allowed at least one journalist to infiltrate an evening they're hosting for the youth wing of the Conservative party. Eighty percent of the people here are men, and they have a lot to say about how the bloody Lib Dems are spoiling everything, and they say it over the heads of the women present.

"Yah, I really don't know what it is about Tory guys," continues Posh Frock. "They're worse than normal. I think it's because there are just so many men in the party, and it makes them...you know..." she fumbles in her bag, pulls out a pink gauze purse full of enough prescription medication to restock Boots, and pops some painkillers. "It just makes them arrogant, I suppose."

Is she some sort of feminist, then? "No! God, no!" she squeals. "No, definitely not, it's nothing like that. It's just - be careful. That's all I'm saying."A hush falls; the hustings have begun. The three candidates for the Conservative Future leadership are all boisterous white men in their mid-twenties, all tall, all a little jowly, distinguishable by the colour of their shirts and the fact that one of them is wearing hipster spectacles. Their pitches are a unanimous declaration of strategic befuddlement.

"Now that we're in power, we've got to show the left that we can win the ideological arguments, because - because we're right!" declares Hipster Spectacles, but he doesn't sound convinced. His platitudes about "progressive politics" elicit disapproving tuts from the back row, who seem to be conducting a rehearsal for their future in the Commons. "Progressive, what does that mean?" mutters James from Kensington. "Everything seems to be progressive these days. It's the buzz-word."

"Yeah, like the Big Society," enjoins prematurely-balding Ollie, who works in the House of Lords and is slurping a Mai Tai from a tumbler shaped like a tribal woman's skull (my drink is in half a pineapple; it's all terribly ethnic). "Nobody knows what the Big Society means! It doesn't mean anything!"

"It means cutting about a hundred billion a year from public services," says his friend, adding hastily, "I mean, like, obviously that's a good thing.""We need to make sure our party follows our principles and not those of the Liberal Democrats!" shouts another candidate. "It's the bloody Lib Dems who're the problem, they're getting in the way of everything!" During the bellow of assent that follows, one of my new friends brushes a hand surreptitiously and quite deliberately against my knee, like someone trying to be seductive in the seventeenth century. With a flash of awful clarity, I realise that these are precisely the young men my grandmother warned me about, that they are the heirs apparent to Britain's political system, and that not one of them has paused to consider if they deserve it. [read the second half at New Statesman...]

My mother always used to say, "Never fuck a Tory unless you're clapped or have the pox." Sage advice which I've never forgotten. So if you happen to have contracted syphilis or gonorrhea shag your condomless Tory date senseless and take one for the team, as it were, otherwise best not form a habit of sleeping with the enemy, Ms. Red.

exactly. this is what really pisses me off about the tory rhetoric of 'doing the right thing'

being born into privilege isn't the result of 'doing the right thing', it isn't the result of merit and hard work. it's luck!

when people criticise all female shortlists, for example, and say 'politicians should get there by merit' they seem to happily ignore the fact that all white male shortlists are the norm, but that george osbourne isn't chancellor because of merit! it's because he was lucky to be born into money, which bought him the best education, and his best buddy became PM. they don't understand that they don't deserve it because they spent their lives 'doing the right thing'. if these tories had been born in a sink estate, or in the desert of sudan, would they still have risen to the top due to their hard work and ability to 'do the right thing'? No.

i am sick of it.

still well done laurie, i left the pub after realising one person i was talking to was young tory. could never manage a whole evening!

I find young labour types just as amusing. I hitched hiked a lot at one time. You had to listen to all sorts of opinions. What I noticed is that just because someone is racist doesn't mean he/she isn't generous, funny and good company. I remember getting rides in Australia in the late 70s and 'racist' views were quite often expressed. Yet sometimes these people would buy me dinner, a beer or even put me up in their house and introduce me to their friends. Their racist views were just a small part of their persona.

Conversely people who expressed left wing views could be quite 'mean'. In short there is more to people than their political views.

I would quite happily share a beer with Nick Griffin .. he's mild in comparison to some of the people I've met around the world. It's good that you went somewhere different than the same old labour tripe . Do it again. I find religious groups quite fascinating. I find the SWP people dead funny. They think that because I understand Marxism I must believe in it! What! believe in that crap! They're as bad as the Mormons.

OK. This comment isn't relevant but as everyone always benefits from a smile I bet you'll find the following pointless jazz amusing. I'm currently studying to be an animator and during a lecture on open source solutions I discovered that you, Ms Penny, have a virtual doppelgänger already living in the animaverse. Check out the following link if you don't believe me:

It's easy to mock anyone, if you're in the right mood. Especially if they're not listening. What would be really more powerful is to ennunciate the financial costs of the inequity they defend. And possibly the psychodynamic implications of their power-craze.

I admit that the long break and the rest were both much needed and very much appreciated. I am thankful for that time, and still look back on it with delight through these long, dark, cold days. luxury apartments london

Penny Red is...

Laurie Penny, 25, journalist, author, feminist, socialist, utopian, general reprobate and troublemaker. Lives in a little hovel room somewhere in London, mainly eating toast and trying to set the world to rights. Drinks too much tea. Has still not managed to quit smoking. Regular writer for New Statesman, The Guardian and The Independent. Author of Meat Market (Zer0 Books, April 2011) and Penny Red (Pluto Press, October 2011).

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